Laugh in the new year at Amazing Things

Michael Moran is inviting folks to greet the New Year by laughing with Brian Kiley, an Emmy award-winning comedy writer for NBC's Conan O'Brien, at Amazing Things Art Center.

Chris Bergeron

Michael Moran is inviting folks to greet the New Year by laughing with Brian Kiley, an Emmy award-winning comedy writer for NBC's Conan O'Brien, at Amazing Things Art Center.

A nationally known standup performer, Kiley will headline the Dec. 31 Wednesday evening show that will include popular comedians Joe Wong and Derek Gerry.

"These are very funny guys," said Moran. "At Amazing Things we're establishing comedy for all ages here in MetroWest. There is no other comedy in this area or even the whole state that isn't centered around bars and alcohol. We want to provide an alternative."

Moran said the 8 p.m. show will be over around 10:30 p.m. so audience members can get home in time for a midnight toast and rendition of "Auld Lang Syne" as the New Year's Eve Ball descends on Times Square.

"These three guys are real high-profile comedians," said Moran. "Tickets are going fast but they're still available."

The other performers, Wong and Gerry, have strong ties to the Boston comedy scene.

A native of China, Wong, who bills himself as the "All-American Immigrant," finished third in the 2003 Boston Comedy Club Festival. He has starred in a short film that won first place in the Cambridge Fringe Fest and performs regularly around Boston and New England.

As a fifth-grader, Gerry first performed standup at the Ding Ho in Cambridge. Since then he's become a regular at the Comedy Studio and Comedy Connection.

A Newton native and former Natick resident, Kiley forged his own comic skills in high school "saying anything for a laugh."

"I wasn't doing much homework. For me, getting a laugh was the highlight of my school day," he said recently. "I was one of five kids in my family. My brother went to Harvard and two other siblings went to Ivy League schools. I grew up thinking I was the family boob. So you do what you can to get noticed."

While classmates worshiped Bobby Orr and lusted after prom queens, Kiley dreamed of becoming another Dick Van Dyke. "Even then I wanted to be a comedy writer and marry a younger Mary Tyler Moore," he said.

The comedic instincts he honed in high school carried him from standup routines around Boston to New York where he has worked as staff writer to Conan O'Brien since 1993.

While majoring in English at Boston College "I use it all the time," he said he started doing stand-up routines on campus and around the city at clubs like The Comedy Connection.

The summer before his senior year at BC, Kiley took summer classes in comedy writing and standup with Denis Leary at Emerson College. In 2007, he won his first Emmy award writing comedy for O'Brien and recently shot a segment for the "2009 NESN Comedy All-Stars."

Growing up next door to O'Brien, who lived in Brookline, Kiley said, "We actually have a lot of similarities and similar comedic sensibilities.

"As a writer, I think I was able to 'get' his humor very quickly," he said.

While outsiders might regard writing comedy for a national star as glamourous, Kiley compared the deadline-driven routine to "almost like working for a newspaper."

He writes O'Brien's monologue, brainstorming with other writers through the morning. O'Brien will "try out' their jokes during a rehearsal and fine-tune the routine before the live monologue.

And whenever slow news days leave little to write about, he said, "There's always Britney Spears and Paris Hilton to get us through."

One of television's most prolific comics, Kiley has appeared more than 30 times on national programs including the "Late Show With David Letterman," "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno," and his own Comedy Central special.

Kiley said described himself as "one-line joke writer" who has developed a comic persona who "satirizes suburban life."

Now 47, he currently lives with his wife and two children, Sean, 13, and Alison, 11. "They love my job," he said. "When they see me on You Tube, it's sort of strange."